FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional disk drive 10 used for data storage. FIGS. 1, 1a, and 1b are not drawn to scale and only certain structures are depicted for clarity. Disk media 50 is attached to spindle motor and hub 20. The spindle motor and hub 20 rotate the media 50 in a direction shown by arrow 55. Head Stack assembly (HSA) 60 includes a magnetic recording head 30 on actuator arm 70 and positions actuator arm 70 by positioning the voice coil motor (VCM) 25 over a desired data track, shown as recording track 40 in this example, to write data onto the media 50.
FIG. 1a illustrates an enlarged view of area 30 of FIG. 1. A magnetic sensor 90 is fabricated on slider 80. Slider 80 may be attached to suspension 75 and suspension 75 may be attached to actuator arm 70 as shown in FIG. 1b. Slider 80 may also incorporate a write transducer 92.
Referring again to FIG. 1a, slider 80 is illustrated above recording track 40. Media 50 and track 40 are moving under slider 80 in an in-track direction shown by arrow 42. The cross-track direction is shown by arrow 41.
FIG. 1b illustrates a side view of the disk drive 10 shown in FIG. 1. At least one disk media 50 is mounted onto spindle motor and hub 20. HSA 60 comprises at least one actuator arm 70 that carries suspension 75 and slider 80. Slider 80 has an air bearing surface (ABS) facing media 50. When the media is rotating and actuator arm 70 is positioned over the media 50, slider 80 floats above media 50 by aerodynamic pressure created between the slider ABS and the surface of media 50 facing the ABS of slider 80.